20/07/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. No doubt about it,

the weather has taken a turn for the unsettled,

and quite a dramatic turn at that.

Quite a few of us have seen thunderstorms

over the last day or so.

That was the early hours of Wednesday at Reigate, in Surrey.

Later on Wednesday, the rain set in

across northwest England,

and also North Wales,

where, in places, there was enough rain

in a short space of time to give some issues with flooding.

I'm not expecting anything quite as dramatic as that

over the next few days, but low pressure will be in charge,

so things will stay unsettled.

To settle things down,

we would need to see high pressure,

but it is way down here,

over the Azores.

We're keeping an eye on that area

of high pressure during this forecast

to see if we can bring it

any closer to the British Isles.

For Thursday, some showery rain to clear away from eastern parts

first thing, then a fair amount of sunshine,

some more rain into the west

later on, and a cooler, fresher feel to the weather,

16 degrees in Aberdeen,

perhaps up to 22 in London.

During Thursday night and into Friday,

things will turn quite windy in the west,

some outbreaks of rain beginning to push in, heavy rain at that.

Staying dry for the time being from eastern Scotland

down towards East Anglia and the southeast.

I think these eastern parts will stay dry during Friday,

because an area of low pressure sliding its way in

isn't going to be making very quick progress at all.

It'll just sit around across the western side of the British Isles,

bringing rain for much of the day

across Wales, the southwest, the West Midlands and Northern Ireland.

Still that cooler, fresher feel for most of us.

So what happens to our area of high pressure?

For the start of the weekend,

it stays stranded down to the southwest,

and low pressure is in charge,

just pin-wheeling around across the country.

That means there'll be spells of rain,

heavy and perhaps thundery showers,

some sunny intervals as well,

temperatures around 15 to 21 degrees.

Low pressure remains with us

right through into Sunday.

Notice the isobars becoming a little more widely spaced.

That means the winds will be a bit lighter,

but it also means where showers crop up on Sunday,

they'll be quite slow moving.

They could give you quite a lot of rain, 16 to 23 degrees.

During Sunday night into Monday,

our area of low pressure will drift a little bit further eastwards

and we start to see our area of high pressure

trying to work its way in.

It certainly extends up the western side of the country,

and gradually, that will settle things down a little bit -

fewer showers, more dry weather,

but north or north-easterly winds,

so it will feel rather cool.

So our high pressure trying to

build its way in,

but watch what happens as we get deeper into the week.

It retreats south-westwards again.

We don't bring in the high across the country or settle things down.

In fact, later in the week,

the jet stream, which drives all our weather systems around the world,

is likely to strengthen, working from west to east,

and this could well spin up some deeper areas of low pressure,

turning things increasingly wet and windy,

but those winds beginning to come in from a south-westerly direction,

so that might just lift the temperatures a little bit.

So through next week, as our high pressure tries to work in,

it'll turn drier for a time, rather cool initially,

rain returning later,

but as that happens,

those temperatures coming up a bit,

so changeable in the coming days.

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